Octopuses are very intelligent. They are solitary, noble creatures. curious and amazing escape artists. Bees can be taught to sniff out cancer. Dogs can recognize the signs of an impending seizure and alert their owner. Trees raise and lower their branches and communicate with other trees through underground fungi, sharing nutrients and water.

We experience our world through our 5 senses. There are light wave lengths, sound frequencies, and who knows what else, that our senses cannot perceive. . There are creatures in nature that experience the world in a way we cannot even imagine. Knowing that fact, appreciating the amazing variety of life on our planet is an enriching experience.

So what am I after here? We exist in a world we do not really know. As our technology and sciences progress, we start to see what we don’t know, as much as what we do know. We are limited creatures. Science tells me that I am made up of more empty space than atoms. What appears solid, is not. The reality I perceive may or may not (probably not ) be the same as you perceive. I create my own reality based on my beliefs, my senses, my experiences and my thoughts. These make up the filter that impacts my reality.

Our brain is amazing. It is also limited. I am not talking about intelligence here, I am acknowledging the fact that when faced with a novel situation, a totally new experience, our brain defaults to what it already knows from previous experiences. I like the example of the superman scenario; “Its a bird, its a plane, No! Its superman!! I see something flying high in the sky. Brain says, ok flying, small, must be a bird! The person next to me says “its a plane, flying, really high, only planes go that high, its a plane. Another astute observer takes a few more seconds to take in new information, “It is flying, really high, I believe I see arms,, a head, legs and maybe a cape? Not a bird, not a plane; its a man, a super flying man!” We all see the world based on our own experiences until we make room for new possibilities.

Like trees raising and lowering their branches, octopuses with complex problem solving skills, crows using tools to get food. Even a person, very different from me, having the same feelings, the same needs, the same goals as me. We are more alike than different. Sometimes, to see what is right in front of our face, we have to put down our filter and stretch our perceived reality.

A little something to stretch your perceptions:

More to come…